Concern about the environment has grown rapidly over the last few years, particularly after the visit of Greta Thunberg who raised concerns that had not been given the attention that they should have done by British politicians.
In the current ranking of concern only Brexit and health are more important than environment, but environment has moved ahead of the economy, crime and immigration. In some ways I would suggest this doesn’t make sense, as the main reason that politicians have taken their eye off environmental considerations is because their attention has been taken so thoroughly onto Brexit, brought about in a large part because of the number of immigrants moving into the UK from Europe.
Whether politicians are confident enough to turn this increase in support for Environmental policies in to action is another matter. I would like to see them start to support solar panels in a meaningful way again after their absurd chaotic changes to this, including requiring people who have installed solar panels to give their electricity away for free to the major electricity generators. I would also like to see them improving the advertising they do of the support they give to electric cars. Finally I would suggest that one of the big things that the government could do is to stop giving such huge amount of cash to oil companies and to transition to large battery storage as backup rather than paying large amounts of money for backup coal generation.
I am sure I’m not the only person who has watched the Conservatives rollout policy after policy that mean very little. Few of us can forget David Cameron’s ‘hug a husky’ trip, particularly given the fact that within the year he was saying he didn’t have time for that Environmental C***. Simple relatively inexpensive (certainly in comparison to the continued subsidies given to fossil fuels) policies could be enacted, and provided that they are thought through carefully and then guaranteed for a sensible length of time, this will make investing in environmental mitigation not only good for the planet but good long-term financial investments.